Friday, November 23, 2012

Gilbert Parker, Northern Lights (1909)

Canadian-born Gilbert Parker (1862-1932) was already a
well-known writer of popular historical fiction when this collection of stories
was published. Two novels had made the top-ten bestseller lists during the
first decade of the century, one of them The Weavers (1907) for two years running. Though Parker lived
much of his life in England, his fiction was devoted mostly to his native
Canada

Setting. In this
collection of 17 stories Parker takes readers westward and northward to the far
frontiers of the land. They take place in what he refers to as the Saskatchewan
valley. The watershed of this eastward flowing river system constitutes a large
swathe of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

It is prairie land, thinly populated, with its earliest
settlement embedded in the history of the Hudson Bay Company. The enforcement
of law and order is in the hands of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. The
people to be found here include Indians and mixed bloods.

"The Stroke of the Hour"

Themes. Guilt and
innocence are a common theme in the stories. In “The Stroke of the Hour,” a man
is about to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. A messenger with a
reprieve for the man is found, afoot in the snow, by a young woman. She
contrives to delay him because the condemned man had once married, then
deserted and caused the death of her sister. Having purloined the reprieve
while the man naps, she thinks better of what she’s done when he’s gone and
takes a perilous shortcut across frozen lakes to deliver the document herself.

In “Buckmaster’s Boy,” a father is bent on revenging the
death of his son, believed to have been shot over a game of cards. When another
man, Sinnet, attempts to prevent him, the father is overtaken with rage and
stabs him. With his dying breaths, Sinnet then confesses that he himself was
the killer, having intervened in what was a drunken fight over a woman.

The wilderness is often an important part of the plot. Many
stories are set in the snowbound winter months, and characters are forced by
circumstances to risk their lives in the snow and cold, or in the very teeth of
blizzards. But the hazards of life in the West are outweighed by its salubrious
effect on health and the human spirit. People are said to thrive out here, away
from the “quiet circle of civic routine and humdrum occupation” back East which
produce sickness of both body and soul.

"The Error of the Day"

Character. Where we
find them, men of courage and principle tend to wear the uniform of the Mounted
Police, who figure in several stories. Here is his description of Sergeant
Foyle in “The Error of the Day”:

He had frightened horse-thieves
and bogus land-agents and speculators out of the country, had fearlessly
tracked down a criminal or a band of criminals when the odds were heavy against
him. He carried on his cheek the scars of two bullets, and there was one white
lock in his brown hair where an arrow had torn the scalp away as, alone, he
drove into the Post a score of Indians, fresh from raiding the cattle of an
immigrant trailing north.

But Foyle is not without his complications. An observer
notices the stirring of “pools of feeling far down in the depths of a lonely
nature.” He is deeply troubled by a moral dilemma, forcing him to choose
between duty and family loyalty.

"The Whisperer"

Villainy. Parker
tends to be more interested in bad guys than good guys. For him, character
faults make more interesting characters. The wilderness as a shaper of
character can coarsen and brutalize men. Limited social resources in the West
send some men’s lives off the rails, as they are ruined by drink and gambling,
and some of them turn to crime and violence.

Yet it’s not exactly a black and white world for all that,
as we learn when Parker explores the psychology of the morally compromised.
While some of his villains are simply hard-hearted thugs and lowlifes, “The
Whisperer” gives us a millionaire railroad magnate, Henderley, living high on
his ill-gotten gains.

Henderley has done “cruel and vicious things” without the
slightest remorse, but other men in the story experience guilt for being his
henchmen. Roger Lygon, suffers plagues of conscience for setting a fire that
caused the accidental deaths of three people. Crime has degraded him, the
narrator says, but it has not hardened him.

His accomplice, Nic Dupont, is another matter. He’s
forgotten any misgivings he might have felt. Greed now motivates him, and he
embroils Lygon in a scheme to blackmail Henderley. When Lygon backs out of the
deal, the craven Dupont is so enraged he tries to kill him. As the story is
told, each of the three men represents a different condition of the criminal
mind.

"Marcile"

Style. Parker’s
stories are strongly plotted, relying often on coincidence for their twists and
turns, but with enough psychological depth to his characters to make them
engaging. His stories find a measure of romance in the extremes of climate and
the drama of a social world where there are fewer restraints on human behavior.

Most of the stories acknowledge a gender divide on one side
of which are unprincipled and unpolished men, while on the other are women
setting a higher example. Some men take advantage of them, while others are
inspired to finer qualities of character. Romantic love is seldom a prominent
theme, and it is rarely used as a way to resolve a plot.

Sir Gilbert Parker

Wrapping up. Traveling
to Australia in the 1880s, Parker worked as a journalist for the Sydney
Morning Herald. After marriage to a New York heiress, he emigrated
to London, where his fiction, set in Canada, was well received, and he served
as a Member of Parliament, 1900-1918. He was knighted in 1902, and during the
years of WWI headed a large propaganda organization aimed at enlisting support
for Britain in America.

FictionMags Index lists about 40 of Parker’s stories
published 1893-1908 in mostly slick magazines. He is chiefly celebrated for his
early fiction about French Canadians, starting with his collection of stories Pierre
and His People (1892). Adapted to the stage
as Pierre of the Plains (1908),
it was made into a film in 1914 and again in 1942. Several other stories
appeared as stage plays, and more than 20 were adapted to film, mostly during
the Silent Era.

Parker is one of those late-19th/early-20th-century writers whose books litter Ontario thrift shops and library sales. I regret that it's only been in recent years that I've bothered with his work. True, it can be melodramatic, and the coincidences can irritate, but the man could weave a tale. The element that has surprised me most is the psychological depth you've identified. This strength is played to it's fullest in The Lane That Had No Turning.

If I may, I think you might be interested in Tarboe, his take on the criminal, card shark and fraudster Frank Tarbeaux.

Another fine review! I see Mr. Parker was writing novels while he was a member of Parliament. Maybe he used some of the Parliamentary figures in them. That was back in the days when nothing much was going on before WWI. Interesting.

Ron, I'm familiar with this writer in that I'm aware of his volume of work though I haven't read anything by him yet. During his time he was, indeed, well-known for his historical fiction and there's so much to read, especially his writings set in the North American continent. I'd prefer reading his books rather than ebooks though access to the latter more easy these days. Thanks for such a fine review, Ron.